pris and her halloween as poof ][ closed

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[ this post is closed only because the story will segue right into a play between pris and lumie after this! they have cute high school dance plans. >.> ]

the more pris thought about it, the more it made sense: she was benjamin for halloween. a specific part of benjamin, granted, but to pris' eccentric mind benjamin chose himself for what she was coming-as-she-wasn't. not big bad wolf benjamin, not the pirate benjamin, not the parent benjamin, but the most common thing she called him - poof. she was poof until halloween was over, because that's the ability he'd gifted to her.

it meant that after seven days of practicing witch costumes, the witch was out the window.

the morning before halloween, benjamin would feel her drawing on his ability in small cautious doses. she had a new costume to wear, and that meant she needed to practice. first during breakfast she used her want to make dommy think that all the drinking glasses were gone. she watched with rapt fascination as he gave up the hunt and plunked the container of orange juice right on the table for both of them to drink from. the test tickled pris, made her laugh behind the cover of a piece of toast and sparkled her eyes. playing that prank on dommy was warm. it felt so safe and warm. it felt like benjamin.

after breakfast, she had to get dressed. it presented a problem. she knew how benjamin dressed, but...male. and she wasn't. like a slideshow she saw him in her mind, each time they'd ever been together. black. she should be guided by black. the black undergarments were easy, and so were the black socks that went all the way up over her knee. pris even made it to black pants, but that's where she hit the wall. what she wore was more than just clothes - it was tied to a compulsion weaned and developed to balance her mind. she hadn't been able to dress monochromatically for years, and even on halloween when it was important for her costume her mind was angry with her, demanding whywhywhy.

"because it's the costume." pris growled softly to herself and her closet. but pris was losing the battle. "white," she muttered to herself finally, "poof is black and white." if one considered parts of a person that an artist considered - the whites of his eyes, the white of his teeth. no matter how much benjamin dressed in black those whites would always be part of him. so pris would be some white too, in the form of a plain white t-shirt. now that she had another color on her body the rest was easy. black shoes, black suspenders, black bowler hat. any part of her hair that was dark green [the color she dyed it last] was pinned up so it was concealed under the hat when she put it on, leaving a few strands of black hanging down. perfect. just in time for school.

she rode the bus there today. normally pris' focus would be all over the place, distracted and mesmerized by all the different costumed people riding with her. but not this time. her emerald eyes were staring at the man in the seat in front of her, who had a newspaper opened wide. could she make him feel like she always did when confronted with so many small letters? the teenager was overcome with the serene warmth a second time as she drew on her temporary gift to make him see what she wanted him to see. as first the man dropped one of his hands away from holding the paper to rub at his eyes. when that and blinking didn't work, he grew immediately frantic at the sight of letters falling off the page. when he saw the letters trying to crawl all over him like ants, he yelled and caused enough of a scene that he was thrown off the bus. pris snuggled back into her chair, saying "purr" under her breath with great satisfaction. she felt she was going to be able to play poof with no problem at all.

it was why she started skipping classes midday. because as she ate her french fries during lunch, she realized that part of being poof was poofing. benjamin appeared at places suddenly when he wanted to be there, and as far as she knew he didn't have to sit at places he didn't want to be. and she didn't want to be in gym class today, or english either. so pris drew on his gift two more times - so that the teachers in those two classes believed they saw her in her seat like usual, when in reality she wasn't really there. during those two classes pris became what she thought benjamin was - a watcher. peeping into the doorways of the classrooms. peering at each of the students as they learned. normally pris wouldn't look at any of them without her eyes shifting all over. but today her gaze was steadier than it had been since the illness began. she was poof today, and poof did with his eyes whatever he wanted. it felt liberating and strangely powerful, being able to be on the outside looking in, instead of having to be one of the ones on the insides, suffering through a lesson they didn't want to learn. she liked it. she liked it a lot.

and then the bell rang, signaling that it was time for the last class of the day. it was time to see mr. math.

[Guest]

math was the only class she didn't have with lumie. the kitsune boy probably wondered where she'd been their last two classes, but pris wasn't focused on that. instead she gazed piercingly at her math teacher as she strode confidently into the classroom the moment the second bell rang. the teacher that disliked her most of all the adults that ran this private school, so mister math wasn't going to let a stare from the creepy girl go unchecked. "playing chicken with the bell, miss ganesvoort?" he sneered at the eccentric girl as she took her seat.

today pris wasn't the only problem the math teacher had to deal with. it was the day before halloween, and it like all holidays was used by the students as an excuse to resist being quiet, doing work, or even being respectful. the costumed class weren't in their seats for more than a minute and already they were turning around in their chairs, tossing candy, and breaking out into spontaneous sounds and riotous laughter. less than fifty minutes until the final bell set them free, but all behaving like school was out. ironically, out of all of them pris was the best behaved, sitting quietly and watching every move her teacher made.

the first move was for his four foot ruler. he was prohibited from switching the children, but in times like this he found smacking it against the chalkboard effective. the 'WHAP' made when the ruler connected froze every student with shock. it was the first time mister math had used his ruler like that with his particular class. twenty-three pairs of dumbfounded eyes stared at him. and one pair of narrowed eyes - pris. the corners of her lips perked with hidden delight. it was just as she hoped. mister math was about to prove that he deserved to be student today and get taught by her. all her practice led to this moment - she was going to expose mister math's insides for all her classmates to see.

"let's keep it this way," mister math said about the quiet. but he still held the ruler aloft, to remind the students he could do that again at any time. "until two fifty-five this classroom is for math. anyone who tries to make it otherwise goes on the list." he grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote, 'demerit' and drew a line under the word. chalk tapped just under that line. "any name that goes here is a name whose owner will not be going to the dance tonight."

the students shifted in their chairs. pris turned, watching them. none of them said anything but she could tell they were upset. as mister math put his ruler down and started the lesson, her classmates became clockwork teenagers, pulling out books and pencils and forgetting how excited and happy they were a moment ago. but their anger was still there. she could see it, tiny black thorns shedding out of the pores of each of them and littering all over the floor. normally she was the only one who felt this way in mister math's class. so for the first time, the students that pris normally felt ostracized from would be on her side. they would thank her for what she was about to do. uniting against a common enemy, the eccentric teenager saw her chance to belong.

intense green eyes turned back towards mister math, staring at him long enough that his insides would show their truth to her. once she saw it, she focused her desire on pulling it out to expose him. after the practice she'd had all day, drawing on the gift had become almost second nature. in making him see what his insides feared was truth, everyone would see. as the familiar warmth returned and blanketed pris as it was a reward for what she'd put into motion, pris sighed with contentment and slouched back in her chair to watch.

it started when mister math looked up from his notes. "what are you all doing out of your seats? get back in them, sit down this INSTANT!" he roared and grabbed his ruler again in a fit of temper. twenty-three pairs of eyes stared at him in absolute confusion, because they belonged to twenty-three students who were in fact still all in their seats. yet mister math didn't seem to see that. because the first part was happening - the fear that no one would listen to his authority. "mr. ulrich, you get your hands off miss darcy and - harris! how DARE you say that to me, i'll have your parents in my office so fast your head will..."

on and on mister math went trying to discipline and stop situations that only he thought existed. pris beamed with delight as she watched her fellow classmates start to snicker, murmuring things and elbowing each other as they watched their teacher 'go nuts'. the class was happy to see mister math behave like this and so was she. for the first time ever in school pris and her peers were the same. she felt like she was soaring.

[Guest]

pris was soaring and mister math only got worse, caught between smacking his ruler on his desk, shaking his fist at them, and trying to write their names on the board. trying to. no matter how his fingers held the chalk, he could only make a wobbly line when he really wanted to form a letter. "u-l-r...u...uuuuuuuhlrich!" he screamed the name he wanted to write at his hand in red-faced frustration, before he pitched the chalk against the wall. the second fear of mister math was happening - he was losing his intellect, it was slipping right out of his ears. as he looked down he watched the individual wrinkles of his brain fall to the floor and then like so many maggots start to crawl away. " 'ere ooo ing?" his face crumpled up in frustrated remorse as his mouth wasn't forming words correctly now either. he dropped his ruler, getting down on his hands and knees and trying to scoop up the bits of his brain and put them back in his head.

an act that only he and pris could properly see. which is why the other students stopped laughing. they went silent, and still, as they watched their math teacher breaking down. suddenly, things had crossed a line. while pris was still beaming with pride and delight that mister math was getting what he deserved, her peers no longer felt the same. they now felt horror, some of them empathy, a few panic. "go get help!" one of them said to the other. "but what'll the rest of us do?" another asked. "what if he tries to attack us?" yet another. "we'll all go." and it was decided. the twenty-three students grabbed their belongings and snuck quickly past their teacher out of the classroom, traveling in a fast-moving horde down to the main office.

leaving pris behind. as the third part of mister math's inner fears came to pass, her charmer eyes weren't on him anymore. they were looking here there and everywhere at the emptiness of the classroom, her smile fading into an unsettled frown. "but..." she said in soft protest to the open doorway that all her peers had disappeared through, "but he deserves..." she looked at her fallen teacher, who had discovered as he tried to scoop up his brain that he had no hands, nor arms nor body or anything at all. when he looked down at himself, the math teacher thought he was gone. that he ceased to exist. on his knees howling, the barely formed sounds echoed of a desperate, 'where am i?'. for the teacher it would be a very terrifying forty-five more minutes.

for pris, it would be a gut-wrenching forty-five more minutes. her glorious moment of belonging had burst, leaving her crushed. for when she looked at mister math, even in the state he was in now, she could not bring himself to feel what her peers had felt. she had no desire to get him help, she didn't fear him, she didn't think she needed to do anything besides what she'd rightfully done. pris had always known that she was uncorrectably different from the rest of her classmates. but feeling it now, caught between the pleasure of punishing someone who hurt her and others and the pain of feeling like even more of an outsider because of said pleasure? it was enough to make her too run from the room.

consequences. she felt that word deep in her bones as she stood in the hallway next to the door of the classroom where lumie had to sit through a chemistry lesson until the bell rang. she needed her two-tailed friend very very much right now, but she had to wait. out of everyone in the school, pris knew that lumie might understand what she now understood:

the consequences of being poof.

[Guest]

Lumie was out the door about two seconds after the long toneless bell. and he was already about to dash down to pris's class but stopped in his tracks. he was wearing an outfit not unlike one Adrian would wear, and even had the cravat and everything. his white hair slicked straight back. an old-fashioned vampire for Halloween like pris had suggested. "Pris! there you are!" his tails where invisible but they where wagging like crazy behind him." are you alright? you weren't in class... are you hurt? what's wrong?" all asked very rapidly of her.

pris wrapped both of her arms around one of lumie's in a rather possessive gesture, one that was rather well-practiced. so was the look she shot any who passed them in the hallway as she pulled lumie with her, a look which essentially said, 'mine'. both of those rituals were always done by pris ever since all the girls at school started trying to ask lumie out. it didn't matter that lumie and pris still hadn't actually said anything to each other about going out or liking each other or anything like that. pris was possessive over him instinctively. thankfully since it was halloween all of their classmates were preoccupied and left the pair of teenagers alone, though as pris and lumie walked down the hall a small crowd was building outside of where pris normally would be in math class. the eldest of the school's security guards was there, the one who was most practiced in 'unusual' incidents at the school. "move it along. i said move it along or i start taking names!" pris was very eager to move it along, practically dragging lumie out of the front doors of the school. it was only then that she answered him under her breath. "i decided not to go. poof doesn't go places unless he wants to. i did what poof did and stood outside classrooms and watched. poof watches all the time."

And Lumie followed along with Pris when she pulled him along until they where outside. and then when she answered lumie said himself in a very Doctorly tone. "and Poof also doesn't go to high school and need to get a good education... I missed you in classes..."

"looo-mie. don't be silly. there is nothing important about gym class and 'the half man'." the book that they were currently reading in english class. pris struggled with any book, and wasn't an avid reader. unless it was a book on tape where she didn't have to stare at the page, she rarely ever managed to keep her focus. "i had to practice my costume. i spent all those days practicing the wrong kind of witches, i was behind." the dance at the school didn't start for a few hours, so pris wasn't about to stop their quick getaway anytime soon. she didn't know where they were going to walk to, she just wanted to be far away from mister math. an hour, that's how long benjamin had said the magic would last and the hour was only minutes from concluding.

"There are lots of important things in gym! we didn't have to change today because it was halloween and everyone was in costumes. but next time I'm going to beat that one kid Steven in a race..." back on topic lumie. "you still shouldn't cut classes though..." said with a nod. Lumie as he did with all things took school very seriously. and was actually getting quite good at it

"i always get picked last for teams." that was a fact. which made sense, really. with the kind of focus issues she had pris was forever drifting off, and that was about when she got hit with a ball or something because she wasn't paying attention. archery she could do fairly well though, and running. things that didn't involve large teams and balls of some kind. she was simply factual as she made that statement, it wasn't fueled by a burning emotional fit or anything because to her gym truly didn't matter. the next thing she said though, that was totally in a teeth clenched grumble whine, "i told you it was for my costume...." to pris that made the reason she cut classes not only very valid, but very important. the fact that lumie was being very contrary with her though, that was kind of new. which is why pris dropped his arm, stopping in her tracks and turning to face him directly. "are you dressed as a parent vampire for halloween? pick on me more for not being in class and tell me why i'm bad? because i wanted to talk to you about something important. but if you're going to be a parent then i need to find someone else."

"No! I'm not a parent vampire..." he said hastily with a nod and then added. " I'm sorry, I didn't want to sound like a parent..." he looked down at the scuffing he was giving to the toe of his boot. "that one boy was kicked out of school for not going to class. and i don't want you to leave school." he picked his head up then and then nodded. "what do you want to talk about? i won't be a parent vampire anymore."

"they can't kick me out for skipping classes. the doctor's note said that. when dommy sat down with the principal and my doctor they agreed to terms. dommy says if they ever tried to kick me out then he could sue and we'd never have to go to school or work again because we'd have money to use for toilet paper." considering her brother was a paralegal he probably knew what he was talking about. which is what the principal suspected as well. which is why pris was tolerated in most of her behaviors, no matter how nontraditional they were. just as a moment ago, pris delivered that reality to lumie in a very factual fashion, devoid of personal feeling about the subject. pris always talked about things through their details, and not through her feelings about them. when she talked about her feelings it never ever ended well. when she was about to tell him about mister math her urgency changed. it didn't matter where they were, they could be on the sidewalk in front of people's houses for all she was concerned, but pris pulled lumie down now to the ground with her where she sat on her knees. she cupped her hands around one of lumie's ears, and she whispered into it. "poof gave me his poofing power for halloween and i used it on mister math."

and to that first thing pris said lumie could only offer a very factual. "oh... okay then, nevermind!" and then he smiled again. even when she pulled him down to his knees with her and whispered that secret into his ear. which brought about a very confused look. "what sort of poofing powers did you use on him?"

see. if this were a different situation, pris would have gloated when lumie said nevermind. she knew what she could get away with at her school, she had a whole year of practice and testing limits and stuff. but they were on the urgent subject now, and pris' fixating mind wouldn't let her focus on anything else. her hands remained cupped around his ear even though pris drew back so she could watch as well as hear lumie's response, and after she digested it she leaned back in to continue the whispering. "i made him see what his insides tell me when i stare. i can poof things in people's eyes that no one else can see but them. it lasts an hour. and cannot work on poof or people with guarded minds." that last bit she said in a very benjamin-like tone, still somehow managing to keep the words a whisper. "mister math thought we were all being bad and not quiet or still when we were. and then he couldn't write to give us demerits or talk to yell at us and each of his brain wrinkles fell out of his ears and started to crawl away and he tried to scoop them up until he thought he disappeared and didn't exist anymore then he just screamed a lot."

Lumie looked confused for a moment and then looked thoughtful before a slow nod and he said. "you got revenge for his shouting at the class. but his brains didn't actually fall out did they? is that why the old guard was standing out by his door?" Yes, Lumie noticed that.

just like last time, once she was done whispering pris sat back so that she could watch lumie's reaction, eyes fixed intently on him while her hands remained cupped to his one ear. she sat quiet for a moment thinking about lumie's reply, and then she leaned in and answered, "yes. no. yes." one factual word for each of the three sentences he spoke. pris was about to lean back to watch his answer again, but she rocked herself forward once more to ask him a question in return. "the rest of the class stopped laughing and ran away but i don't see why. am i bad?" now she definitely leaned back, very quickly too, because she didn't want to miss a second of lumie's reaction. her question was very very important. there was a lot riding on lumie's answer.

and Lumie was chewing on the inside of his cheek when she asked that question. he didn't want to upset pris. but he wasn't a liar by any stretch of imagination. "I don't think you're bad... but that wasn't a very nice thing to do to Mr Math, even if he was yelling at you and the class. especially if they had to call in the guard." he said that very slowly as if he was gauging her reaction by how she looked while he spoke to her. "What do my insides tell you when you look at me?" he was curious. and there wasn't anything in his question besides that. call it an ADD moment.

"but he's not nice to me." it was said with heat in her voice, the flare touching her eyes. it was a level of emoting and feeling that pris didn't usually ever do. the uncharacteristic display of temper wasn't at lumie, it was at mister math because of all the things he'd said and done to pris over the past year. because her brain was showing them all, flickers flickers flickers like a slideshow in her mind that she couldn't shut off. she smacked her hands against the cement sidewalk to emphasize her frustration and the torment the teacher had caused her over all that time. despite her emotional display, she still managed to speak using only facts. "you don't know. you're not in that class with me. you weren't in the class last year. he calls me terrible names. and sometimes i think he takes extra points off my tests. he tries to send me to the principal when i don't deserve to go. you don't know. and the whole class they...they...they felt my feelings! when he yelled at them, they looked how i always feel for the first time, THE FIRST TIME," said a second time very loudly to make sure lumie understood the pricelessness of that similarity between her and the rest of the class, "and we were the same and all of us got feeling-punched and i was supposed to be the hero. but instead they ran. they ran and i hate him and i hate them and i thought you'd understand!" hate. hate was certainly a feeling. pris had slipped up in her dissociative ways. fingertips scraped against the sidewalk to toss the loose pebbles there at him before she started to get up to her feet. obviously pris wasn't going to answer his question, not when she'd gotten this worked up. a far cry from her normal detached behavior, the volcano of feeling took away her ability to stay still.

Lumie maybe looked a little hurt at her accusation that he didn't understand. and he took the attacks of the pebbles while hanging his head. letting her stand but he himself remained on his knees."I do understand pris! I do! but you're still not supposed to hurt people even when you're really mad at them. because when you hurt someone because they hurt you... that makes you the same as them... and you cant be the same as your stupid math teacher pris because you're better then he is!" and that's when lumie stood up, giving a firm nod. The doctor never hurt people. ever. and he was the biggest hero in the universe. Lumie thought very highly of that fact.

"don't you say i hurt him, don't." now pris' finger was out, and it was pointed an inch away from lumie's nose. she looked fierce right then, like she could spit fire or cause an earthquake. "all i did was tell his truth. are you going to tell me telling his truth was bad? i took his insides and i showed them on his outside for him to see. all he saw was himself. and it's himself's fault that himself is like that. i didn't make him himself. maybe now that he's seem himself for who himself is he'll think twice about what he does because of what it's made him or what he's made it. isn't that what saving the universe is? huh? isn't that what you and mister planet and boom all do? why are you good enough to do that and i'm not? huh?" her finger dropped, and both of her hands were in tight fists at her sides. she looked ready to launch like a bottle rocket from all the anger and hurt and frustration she was feeling. "because i'm a girl? because my brain can't balance? because i don't laugh right or smile enough or have a special piece of paper that says i can? no, you're right. when someone treats me wrong because they think i'm nothing or stupid or wrong i'm just supposed to sit there and go blink blink blink," which she did with her eyes, making them looked glazed and unfocused like a dumb daze, "and pretend i don't understand what they're doing or saying and why and pretend that it doesn't scratch me up on the inside and make me feel alone or hate myself or want to disappear and just let them get away with it!" she stamped her foot once on the ground hard and shot off down the sidewalk. this time in a purposeful direction, to go home to her room where she couldn't wait to slam all the doors and not come out again. she'd made a mistake. started to talk about feeling. she couldn't handle feelings, and it was pushing her to an episode that would only get worse. things weren't looking right to her, bending and twisting in her inner and outer eyes and she was feeling attacked.

"I never said that you couldn't pris! you're saying that I said things that I didn't say at all. which isn't fair to me." And Lumie marched right up to her and stopped in front of her. "I also never said that you should just let people treat you badly because that isn't good either. All I did say was that just because your mad doesn't mean that you can do what you want to people. Nobody can..." he shook his head and took a slow breath. "... people hide things that hurt them inside. everyone hides things... the math teacher, The doctor, Catherine, You, Me, Everybody... and you keep them inside because it hurts to see them... I know the math teacher is a mean bully who picks on you... but that is only because you're better then him and he is jealous... he is upset now... but what about later?" poor lumie couldn't say all of that with very much strength at all. he wasn't one used to long confrontations with his girlfriend.

"you DID! YOU DID!" she really was screaming. enough to scratch her vocal cords and turn the heads of people who were within earshot, enough to make her red in the face. if she were a cartoon, she would have steam coming out her ears. it was the type of episode that only dommy or her mother or perhaps her doctor had seen from her before, and they were about the only three people who knew how to deal with it. "between your - " here pris didn't have the words to say what she wanted to say, so it was 'spoken' through a series of jerky gestures with both of her hands. " - words," she spat out trying to finish the thought. between his words he said she couldn't save the universe. by how she interpreted them, by how her eccentric brain made connections, whether she was right or wrong unfortunately pris was certain she was right. "and you, YOU. SINKER. telling me i can't. when you told mister math you'd lie to the principal. if he didn't let you stay. 'if you make me leave i go straight to the principal and tell her that i saw you touch her inappropriately. what's she going to think when she comes here and sees a shut door?'" pris parroted the words lumie said to mister math the day the teacher accused her of not doing her homework right back at the kitsune boy. matching the inflection and tone of how lumie's said that in a perfect mimic. "YOU did what you wanted! because you're special universe saver. but i can't. you say i can't. you say that and i say that's, that's..." she jerked her hands forward in a pushing motion. not actually pushing him. but showing that's just what she wanted to do. and then she spun to face the nearest brick wall and she banged her clenched fists against it and kicked at it with her shoe hard enough that the black toe got badly scuffed. the injustice, the double standard that she thought was at work here and the broken emotional dam, all had pushed her over the edge. poor lumie really was poor lumie, because pris wasn't exactly lucid or logical right now. she was all emotion and reaction and both of those things could become easily more extreme.

[. . .to be contined . . .]

[Guest]

"but I didn't say those things prissy, I really didn't... I didn't say anything between my words..." lumie said with a firm nod. and when she went to punch the wall and then kicked it lumie yipped and winced. "From what you told me pris, you did a lot more then threaten him to report him to the principal... When i told him I'd go get the principal they didn't need the old security guard to come and watch the door...." lumie reached forward and took her hand so that she wouldn't punch the wall anymore. the protective creature in him there not wanting her to hurt herself." and I said that so that you'd be safe... and that he wouldn't be able to yell at you when no one could see. Because i like you, not because I hated him... I do hate him but it's not the reason i did it."

the fortunate thing was that pris was not drawing on benjamin's gift right now. lumie nor anyone else would want to see what reality looked like to her at the moment. in the throws of an episode, everything she saw both in her mind and outwardly followed no natural laws. it disturbed even her, and the fact of the matter was when she had an episode this severe while she was feeling such an emotional extreme she really had no control. it was why her screams became guttural and they were really just strings of sounds that were in no particular order and had no particular meaning, and it was why pris continued to throw herself against the wall - hands feet chest even head, all were points of contact as if she thought herself a battering ram trying to knock the brick edifice down. to her eyes and mind, the brick wall wasn't even a brick wall at that point. surely it was for situations like this that padded walls were invented, and moments like this that planted the seed of worry in pris that she wasn't going to make it through life, 'okay'. so much of the problem was that the things lumie said back to her, it told her she wasn't saying the right words to him because he really didn't understand. he didn't understand how people like mister math made her feel on her inside, he didn't understand why mister math deserved what he did, he didn't understand the injustice she felt because others were allowed to take action and he was saying she was not. and most of all - because she wasn't able to articulate it - he didn't understand how heart-cracking it was for her when the glorious moment of being the 'same' as the rest of her peers had been shattered when they stopped laughing at mister math's punishment and ran from the classroom horrified. everyone had their breaking point, and pris was sure having one of those. because she was unable to deal with her heart cracks.

Lumie reached out again and grabbed her, this time though the kitsune did not just grab her wrist, no he stepped around her to put himself between her and the wall and wrapped both of his arms around her. taking whatever brunt of an attack her thrashing was going to give him, after all he was a protector, and needed to protect prissy from getting hurt. even if it meant he was going to be getting a little hurt. and since poor Lumie thought this was all his fault he kept saying softly." I'm sorry pris, I didn't mean to upset you." at least two or three times. in a small strained voice. still holding onto her body tightly. keeping her from being able to lash out at the wall.

when lumie wrapped both of his arms around her she screamed. it was the sort of scream one only thought possible in horror movies, where the sheer sound of it could cause gooseflesh. after the initial lungful of air that powered the scream was gone, new air was taken in with a gasp like pris was desperate and drowning - which in a way was the case. the sounds that followed from her was a mixture of yelling and sobbing, most with a tone of accusation or protest. at this point the wall wasn't a wall, the sidewalk wasn't a sidewalk, the sky wasn't the sky, the ground not the ground and even lumie wasn't lumie. he was a captor, a trap, and its likely that she didn't even hear his words correctly. or rather she heard them, but her brain didn't translate them correctly in the midst of her meltdown. the poor boy really put himself at the brunt of her assault because now she was struggling against him. like he was he jailer it was true because of what she saw but untrue in reality. though lumie might feel it was his fault, it really wasn't. while some of the words he set her off, the majority of the cause was a culmination of emotions that had all reached their peak at the same time. everytime her doctor or anyone else tried to get pris to talk deeply and at length about her father, for example, this exact same thing happened. if donald had pushed pris to talk about her and dommy's fight and dommy's flight, this exact same thing would have happened. it was the reason that pris was truly better off having an emotional detachment disorder - because she couldn't deal with her emotions in their heights. so much of this was her mistake - she'd tried to speak about her feelings, and she should have known better.

And If anyone who asked why Lumie had looked like he'd gotten his ass kicked he probably wouldn't mention anything about it being a girl that did it, unless it was to the doctor. "Pris I'm sorry, pris I'm sorry, pris I'm sorry..." Lumie jammed his eyes shut tightly and reached telepathically out, as far as he could reach. If the Doctor was anywhere within reach of him he would hear lumie in his single sentence. 'Doctor, pris needs help.' and you could never say that the Doctor didn't come when asked because just when he reached out for the Doctor, the sound of the TARDIS winding up and then down could be heard. and after a few of those the door opened to reveal the besuited Doctor. specticles and all. "Lumie! Priscilla! what's happened?" seeing pris thrashing about, and lumie taking the brunt of that thrashing the doctor being the bigger taller adult reached forward and scooped pris up in one arm. There was one thing that not many people knew. and it was a fact. names held power, all names, even his own name, where one to name him by such. when you knew someone's full name and could say it perfectly, you drew a connection with them, able to channel energies through. so when the Doctor said, "Priscilla Grace Ganesvoort... you should calm down..." she might feel the doctor reaching out, easing her down. like when a negotiator eases a jumper from the building. It was baby steps. "you're with friends... we just want to help you... It's going to be alright." that last bit parroted by young Lumie who dispute his thrashing still looked amazingly concerned.

what happened next was very similar to a wind-up toy losing its juice. there was one last struggle frantic on pris' part as she felt a foreign something invading her mind [as benjamin had found out the hard way pris was rather compulsively sensative about things like that]. with the struggle came sounds of protest, but they were a lot quieter than the ones before. as if there was a hand over her mouth muffling the volume, when there wasn't. the sounds trickled off to what would be a rather familiar whining sound from the girl, and by then the doctor would feel pris' weight slumping back into his arms as she went still. still, silent, and staring distantly off at a fixed point that had no meaning. but at least she'd calmed down. the girl was no more than a rag doll, so hopefully the doctor was prepared to hold her up.

"that's a good girl. come on, lets get you in side... Lumie, I want you to go downstairs and get her a nice glass of water and her usual pillows for when she comes over..." and with a hop skip and a yip lumie dashed down the stairs, with a deft jump over the railing that he himself had come up with, it shaved like three seconds off his stair dashing times and he thought it looked good. the doctor, he held pris' weight, and carried her carefully down the stairs. resting her down onto what was a nice comfy couch complete with the nice comfy pillows pris claimed for her own. Many of which came from Lumie's own bedroom. such was a rather entertaining day when she went around looking for the right ones. Relevance withstanding, the TARDIS was the Doctor's private sanctuary, and was the absolute safest place in the universe. and as it were any prying eyes or ears that would try and spy on those within the curious little blue box would find themselves frustrated by the Doctor's brilliant defenses. because as it stood, nothing outside of the TARDIS could see, hear, or feel anything on the inside of the machine. wouldn't be much of a safe place otherwise now would it?

[ end of log for board purposes ]

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